Indian Smart Village

Microsoft is helping set up the village of Harisal in the Indian state of Maharashtra, as a "smart village". There is a video  and press item about this, but all I could find from the government was a PR newsletter, which says "The technology will make the
delivery of education and health services better". The Harisal "smart village" has the makings for a repeat of the failed "Gungahlin Broadband Project".

In 1993 the ACT Government formed a "Strategic Alliance" with Telecom Australia, which included the "Gungahlin Broadband Project". The University of Canberra were also involved (Balnaves, 2002). The project was abandoned in 1996 and, as the then ACT Government admitted, it was never clear what the project was to accomplish. This came to mind recently, as I am researching e-learning in India. The major impediment is skepticism by Indian academics and government, about the value of on-line learning. Another problem is limited access to the Internet, but the "smart village" approach is not the solution.

Reference

Balnaves, M. (2002). Finding an audience for a new service. In M. Balnaves, J. Sternberg & T. O'Regan (Eds.), Mobilising the audience. (pp. 235-252). Brisbane:The University of Queensland Press.